Ready for a bright idea? Here's how you can make a lampshade with photos to fabric transfers.
The feel and glow you get from photos printed onto fabric is beautiful. Keep that in mind when choosing a photo for your lampshade. Some photos lend themselves better to be backlit than others.
Here's what you need to make a lampshade. An Inkjet Printer that uses fade resistant pigment inks. A self-adhesive lampshade, cotton inkjet fabric sheets, scissors, decorative ribbon or rope, and regular glue. You should be able to find all that at a crafts stores such as Michaels.
The process is quite simple. Start with the photos to fabric transfer. Print out your favorite photo four times onto a sheet of inkjet fabric. Or use 4 different photos to create a composition, like I did with the lighthouse lampshade. Remove paper wrapping from lampshade and cut into four even pieces. Use the pieces as templates to cut fabric sheets to size. Then peel off backing paper from each fabric sheet and stick to the lampshade, going around. Last step. Glue ribbon along the vertical seams and decorate top and bottom edge of lampshade any way you want. Then clip it on your lamp and enjoy the glow!
And to achieve the perfect glow, use a fader switch.
Tips:
Print your image on paper first to make sure you like the pattern/composition.
When cutting the fabric sheets, leave a bit of extra fabric so that you can overlap the sheets slightly. Also leave extra fabric on top and bottom. It's easy to trim that off later.
Print your image on paper first to make sure you like the pattern/composition.
When cutting the fabric sheets, leave a bit of extra fabric so that you can overlap the sheets slightly. Also leave extra fabric on top and bottom. It's easy to trim that off later.
